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Mexico drug lord loses bid to block extradition

AP

Members of the Army patrol the surroundings of the Puente Grande State prison in Zapotlanejo, Jalisco State, Mexico, on Aug. 9, 2013 where former top Mexican cartel boss Rafael Caro Quintero was being held. Hector Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images

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A Mexican judge has denied a fugitive drug lord an injunction against any possible extradition to the United States, where he is wanted in the killing of a Drug Enforcement Administration agent, judicial authorities said Tuesday.

The Federal Judicial Council said in a brief statement that the judge rejected Rafael Caro Quintero's petition. It gave no other details.

Caro Quintero hasn't been seen in public since he walked out of a Mexican prison in August after an appeals court overturned on procedural grounds his conviction in the 1985 kidnapping, torture and murder of DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena. After his release, Mexican prosecutors issued an arrest warrant when Mexico's Supreme Court annulled the lower court's ruling.

Caro Quintero had served 28 years of a 40-year sentence.

The U.S. State Department has offered a $5 million reward for information leading to Caro Quintero's arrest. An indictment out of a California federal court charges him with kidnapping, murder and other crimes related to drug trafficking and Camarena's slaying.

In December, the Mexican magazine Proceso published a letter from Caro Quintero that it said was relayed by his legal representatives, but it did not identify them.

In the message, Caro Quintero, the 61-year-old founding member of one of Mexico's earliest and biggest drug cartels, said he already spent more than 28 years in prison and paid for his crimes. He complained that the United States would try him again for the same crimes for which he partially served a sentence in a penitentiary in the western Mexico city of Guadalajara.